angier, where her fiance's family
lived; perhaps they would remain there; perhaps they would journey to
South America and resume business there. At any rate, their love, their
sweet adventure, their divine dream, was ended forever.

"Forever!" murmured Luis in a muffled voice. "Say it again. I hear it
from your lips, yet I can't believe my ears. Say it once more. I wish to
make sure."

His voice was filled with supplication but at the same time his clenched
hand and his threatening glance terrified Luna, who opened her eyes wide
and pressed her lips tightly together, as if restraining a sob. The
Jewess seemed to grow old in the shadows.

The fiery bird of twilight flashed through the air with its fluttering
of red wings. Closely following came a thunderclap that made the houses
and ground tremble.... The sunset gun! Aguirre, in his agony, could see
in his mind's eye a high wall of crags, flying gulls, the foamy, roaring
sea, a misty evening light, the same as that which now enveloped them.

"Do you remember, Luna? Do you remember?"...

The roll of drums sounded from a near-by street, accompanied by the
shrill notes of the fife and the deep boom of the bass drum, drowning
with its belligerent sound the mystic, ethereal chants that seemed to
filter through the walls of the temple. It was the evening patrol on its
way to close the gates of the town. The soldiers, clad in uniforms of
greyish yellow, marched by, in time with the tune from their
instruments, while above their cloth helmets waved the arms of the
gymnast who was deafening the street with his blows upon the drum head.

The two waited for the noisy patrol to pass. As the soldiers disappeared
in the distance the melodies from the celestial choir inside the church
returned slowly to the ears of the listeners.

The Spaniard was abject, imploring, passing from his threatening
attitude to one of humble supplication.

"Luna... Lunita! What you say is not true. It cannot be. To separate
like this? Don't listen to any of them. Follow the dictates of your
heart. There is still a chance for us to be happy. Instead of going off
with that man whom you do not love, whom you surely cannot love, flee
with me."

"No," she replied firmly, closing her eyes as though she feared to
weaken if she looked at him. "No. That is impossible. Your God is not my
God. Your people, not my people."

In the Catholic Cathedral, near by, but out of sight, the bell rang with
a slow, inf